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Thanks Sir. Thanks Gill. Sumatra driftwood, really good stuff.

Over the years yes but once you've got the ADA stuff it tends to last, my lily pipes are scratched, the tank is scratched, everything is a bit old but it keeps on going. It's a working tank in a sense. The expensive bit I find is the substrate system and ferts.

Hi everyone, I thought I would post this journal about my new layout, having not been on here for a good few years (but still keeping my eye on the hobby) I've decided try to share some of the progress with my tank. Not much has changed really, I've had a few different layouts in my little 60cm...

Re: Saintly's 120cm' Fraggle rock' Looking good sir. Not sure what fish I could suggest, I guess Tetras suit the rock type layouts the best. I saw some glowlight tetras in a tank t'other day and I thought they looked really cool.

Don't tempt me with reef mate :)

Yeah I've not figured that out yet myself if I do grow moss I'm going to need the lights on and maybe co2 , if I grow nothing it's a weird one maybe just have the lights on for a few hours. If anyone has any thoughts on that it would be good to hear em!

Well I wouldn't get too excited the design I have planned might not even be valid to post on a site devoted to plants! It will just be sand wood stones and moss probably and look very sparse, what I have planned I wouldn't class as planted aquaria or a biotope, it will be for corys mainly and I...

Spot on that's exactly it. We have learnt these techniques and aquascape approaches but they can be applied to biotope setups and stuff like that.

Thanks appreciate it. I dunno I feel like I've ran an NA tank for so long I fancy a change. I find time is a factor and my laziness too, and I might feel differently about the hobby if I'm keeping more interesting fish than just tetras and ottos. I've had tetras for so long I can't remember what...

Well I went and bought a Rio 125 tonight because the shop near me was doing a deal where you could get the tank and they throw in the cabinet for free. So I thought I may as well get it even if it doesn't work out I can still sell it and probably make a lot of it back. Observations well they've...

I've changed it completely now for different wood, just wasn't happy with the way it was progressing. I've been battling with the idea of scrapping the open topped 60cm ADA style tank and getting a Rio 125 instead. The closed top thing appeals to me because I find you get a lot of spilled light...

I really like your aquascape in this tank, the rock placement and wood looks very natural, it has a rustic coastal type feel to me. The mixture of sand and stone is great. :thumbup:

The original is on my flickr, it's 1280 wide this one so it is rather large. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4539015636_a63b00bf4f_o.jpg

Yeah it's probably a mixture of scum and bubbles from the pearling, towards the end of the photo period there is a lot of stuff on the surface so I have just been raising the lily pipe a bit to drive it off. The water has been a bit cloudy and scummy from believe it not the sand, I don't think...

Thanks very much Sir. I'm not sure about opti-white tanks either, there's a difference between it and float glass in terms of clarity, but to me it's more about the colour of the silicone and the lack of bracing. Thanks very much.

We shall see Sir, I will just keep on with it I'm not stressing over this tank. I'm pleased with the wood and stone arrangement so as long as that stays solid I'm happy. The Solar II; where do I start? Now it's working it's wonderful it is without a doubt a beautifully designed piece of...

Oi oi, At the request of Mr Farmer I'm putting up a thread here about my new layout. This is what it looks like ... I've had a lot of trouble setting up this aquarium over the past few months, I found out my heater had packed in, my inline heater, the light decided to stop working midway...

Sounds good mate. Second point nah that's not me.

Hi, yeah kinda, it's been winding down for ages and ages now. I'm starting to work on a new layout and I want to get things back to normal again, I haven't been doing much in the way of aquascaping or anything for ages. Still keeping my aquajournal subscription going at the moment, that's about...

Thanks for the responses dudes. I am going to search Garufs posts to see what happened now. I noticed last night there were about 5 shrimp left so I'm not doing too badly, I lost a lot of the bigger shrimp though which is saddening because I like to keep them first of all and secondly they do...

Bit of an update, I haven't been posting or looking at aquariums in while really but I had a rather nasty mishap with my tank. About a month ago I noticed suddenly the level had dropped a couple of cms and I had rather a lot of dead shrimp in the tank which had turned pink. Straight away I...

Thanks for the comments guys. George has been drinking again I see :D

Update - Day 85 Here are some updated pictures. I've been working away a lot recently so I haven't had to chance to maintain my tank as much as I would have liked to. I gave it a trim on Friday after my visit to TGM for the ADA Demo Day. There isn't really much I can do to improve...

No it was me being thick I didn't realise he had done already!

Luis you need to post your tank on here if you haven't already!

Yeah you are right, I will have to keep trimming it and maintaining it.

LOLLL you guys are crazy, maybe if I was a millionaire I would do it!

Correct, it has not captured the red-ness properly but it looks much better than that. I am starting to get frustrated with this layout already. Buying the ADA old iron wood hasn't helped matters and I can't help feeling a sand foreground is the way to go, much easier to maintain! The trimming...

Re: saintly's ??????? scape Very impressive.

I will try that certainly, thanks for the comment. They are a classic fish IMO and often overlooked for favour of the flashier cardinal tetra. I always go for the underdog and I like the subtle appearance of neons. I do plan to add more tetras though to give it a bit of colour and also I fancy...

Update - Day 50 Well I have added the glosso as you can see and also the fish and shrimp are back in the tank now. I have upped the collection of neons with a few more ones to fill out the shoal. I plan to add some emperor tetras too if I can find them. Side shot other side shot The...

Monsoir with these ferrero rocher you are really spoiling us!

We shall see, I've had it before ages ago but I can't remember how it grew. Any tips on trimming it? I've planted up most of the pots of glosso I got the other day. It went quite well although I did have some issues using the aquasoil which I will update when I post some new pictures.

Yeah I used a different white balance setting on the second one, which I didn't realise at first but in retrospect it's a better colour rendition so I guess I will be using that from now on. I think it's auto +3 on my Nikon, the autowb seems to cope with the different light sources the best...

Looking really good.

Cheers dudes. No I won't be removing it completely but will be trying to work the glosso so it is the dominant foreground plant and that the tenellus is softening the edges if that makes sense.

Day 25 - Update Here you can see the difference in growth since 7th October. There isn't that drastic a change happening I guess the most interesting thing to report is that the stems need their first trim, in fact everything pretty much does. This next stage is going to be very difficult...

With the size of your tank it will work really well. For smaller tanks and for the size it reaches I think it's not right.

Yep, thanks for the comments too. Basically I am going to remove a lot of the tenellus which is a bloody shame as it's grown so well in such a short space of time, I should have listened to other people on this one while I don't agree with it looking totally wrong it certainly is a little too...

It is fantastic wood that's for sure but it's leaching tannins like a bstard at the moment! I'm going to have to soak it for several weeks unless I want my tank to look like I've dropped a box of Twinings in it.

Reminds me of doing mine! Messy business. Looking good though good start.

I'm sure when I worked with it years ago it was never this big. I'm starting to think I should have just used sand for my foreground, much easier to maintain just vac it.

Thanks Richie much appreciated. I'm going to use glosso and thin out the tenellus a little, I believe you can mix foreground plants and it doesn't have to be really regimented, so this is what I'm going to try out. You have kind put me off using glosso now :lol: but no I must be strong and go...

I'm at a bit of an crossroads at the moment. Firstly while I like the appearance of the tenellus I think it is just going to get too unruly as the main foreground plant so I'm going to remove a lot of it and replace it with glosso. Secondly I have received my ADA old iron wood now and it looks...

Thanks, I might be changing it totally soon though :D

What about Eleocharis "parvula"??? I'm thinking along those lines now.

Day 16 - Update Here is a frontal shot of the tank. Not very straight but you get the picture, here you can see the growth so far. Again a bit wobbly but there you go. My thoughts so far are even though I am happy with the growth of the echinodorus tenellus I think it is perhaps too...

The rocks you have got look really good and the tank certainly looks fresh. For what you are trying to do I'm not sure using stem plants in the background would be such a good idea. I prefer the second layout you did with the rocks each at opposing ends, but I would maybe break up the right one...

Right yeah. I guess tropica assume a bit more so they are catering for people of all levels and interests. I didn't think I would have problems with a stem plant, bolbitus on the other hand I have had tremendous difficulty with in the past! Your tank looks very good btw :yes:

It seems to be growing ok. What are your experiences with it? Tropica state it is difficult.

Day 11 - Update Ok so more or less 11 days in already. I have seen green dust algae on the glass which I've removed. Some mould growing on the wood, this sort of white stuff which I just scraped off with a toothbrush. There are some traces of BBA around some of the leaves of the e tenellus...

Thanks sir. Yes I am focused on it. It's a learning exercise really but I'm not trying to say look at this this is how you do it etc, a lot of people on here do that much better than I can. If people enjoy looking at the pictures then great.

Thanks very kind you. I was very happy with the plants yes they're excellent, and such a refreshing change to have all the plants you want right there in the place, as well as them being the correct types! I was also very pleased with the redmoor I got but I just felt I was trying to do too...

Thanks and will do.

Cheers Dan

thanks very much

Re: James3200s 6.5x2x2' planted tank - Discus now in Blown away mate, the layout looks absolutely awesome!

Thanks sir. It was a combo of my 50mm f1.8 and 28mm f2.8 both solid lenses although there is a little barrel distortion on the 28mm. Yeah I know Luis via MSN, I keep badgering him for more pictures, stunning work he's doing there.

STEP 4 - Aftermath! This is how the tank looked at that stage. Shortly after this disaster stuck. I went out to the pub and when I got back wasted with a takeaway I noticed the level had dropped and the carpet was soaking, one of the filter taps on my eheim was leaking so I had set up an...

STEP 3 - Planting Remembering to keep misting the moss with water so as not to let it dry out I planted up the foreground with echinodorus tenellus. I'm not sure about this at the moment it looks a bit messy but I'm hoping it's going to fill in. As you can see the substrate was soaked...

STEP 2 - Wood arrangement I'd originally planned to use redmoor wood which broke the surface of the water easily and looked quite impressive, but I decided against this because mainly I felt it was too overpowering in a two foot tank, I think it would be better suited to a 90x45x45 (hmmmmm)...

STEP 1 - Substrate Here we have all the aquasoil removed exposing the base layer of power sand special. I didn't want to disturb this too much. The aquasoil was added over the top like so. I use a plastic container and sprinkle the substrate lightly over, as I don't want it to compact...

Ok here is a step by step of my new layout. As you may know I've been running a tank using the same equipment for about a year and a half now, but I'd become a bit bored and frustrated with the old layout and wanted to try something different. There were a couple of reasons for this. mainly the...

Wood is soaking as we speak, hardware for temp tank ordered so I'm getting there, hoping to do it next week. Thanks for the interest.

The preview shot you showed us looks awesome!

Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!) Your rock placement on the right hand side is especially good. It will be interesting to see how it matures.

It might also be the WB settings on the camera mind you. But the image pretty much matches the colour of the tubes.

Not long left for it now, plans are in motion for my new layout.

I would think both of the tubes PM posted here would work fine. Power compacts like I use of course wouldn't fit you would have to get the screwdriver out and start messing with your luminaire.

Respect, like the thinking there.

The phillips ones might be better as they state 'Full spectrum with extra blue supports S.A.D. treatment' which you would think is the more type of natural light. I think I remember George saying even though certain things are listed at a K such as 8000k you cannot assume all the colour temps...

Exposure Compensation + EV, White Balance set to +2 etc etc, that's before it goes into Adobe Lightroom!!! it makes my head spin but all I can say is we are lucky we have the option of using digital and hence making mistakes, so we can try everything out. I don't know much about post processing...

Thanks very much. Glad it has inspired someone. Regarding the lighting I use the Interpet Daylight Plus power compacts. These are rated at 36w and I think the colour temp is 6500k, it's a very clean white light. The idea behind this was ADA use 2 of these dual tubes over their 60cm tanks so...

Cheers dude. Still running... Lily Pipes still intact! As are the crypts

Thanks guys.

Hey guys, Thanks for the query! I really appreciate it. I've basically for the last 6 months or so been going through a particularly difficult move (solicitors, nuff said), selling my house, moving in with my parents for a bit while my purchase went through then moving into an apartment, so my...

I would fill it out more with cabomba covering the background, let it grow in a quite haphazard way.

Mange Tout George. 8)

Too right! Picatures!

Thanks for the comment. I have never managed to grow Eleocharis vivipara but would love to try this out. I am planning to take this layout apart after it's year is up (day 322 so far) and would love to try a iwagumi using that plant. I tried it years ago but it never grew for me mind you I have...

Thanks for the move!

Some more pictures. As you can see growth of the v nana is getting rather unruly. Lily Pipe Outflow Drop Checker. PS could someone please move this thread to the Journals section as I feel it's better suited to there.

Nice journal old boy. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I am noting the clarity as we go along. The growth you can see here is brilliant. A fine nature aquarium sir I take my hat off to you.

Don't dangle the carrot Nick for heavens sake get it posted!

Thanks for the comments hombre, very kind of you. But yeah we are all slapping each others backs here, lets get down to business, er mainly you putting up a journal of your new tank :D

My water is really soft yes, that may be the problem as I understand vallis does not like soft water. That is why I have always done so well with moss and crypts I imagine.

It was from Tropica yes. Length was about 12" from the pot. It doesn't seem to be growing too well though the growth is quite slow. I have never had much luck with vallis which seems ridiculous as it should grow in anything.

I think you'll find Nicks is much better than mine. 8) It is not a rescape really, I added some more wood but one of the guys on AE said he preferred it before and he was right, I was just trying to add onto something which really didn't need adding onto. The plant in the background is v...

Just replicating what I posted over on AE. I've removed the extra wood, it just didn't look right and I think the layout is better for it. What do you guys think?